A Single Syringe
by Zoi no miko
Summary: A dark secret is left buried in John Murdoch's memories by the man who helped him defeat the Strangers. John Murdoch/Daniel Schreber
1. Intro Broken

Disclaimer: I do not own, lay claim to or make money from Dark City, the characters, or anything else covered under copyright law. The following is a work of fan fiction for entertainment purposes only.

Author's Notes: This fic has been edited to fit your all ages website.

Broken (Intro)

It had been years since he'd seen the sun. Exactly how long, he wasn't sure. It was hard to place his ruined memories on an accurate chronological time frame. Years of darkness, years of working for them, facilitating Their experiments on his own kind. He was all but numb to it now, with all his original quandaries about morality and fairness locked away deep in his mind.

He didn't have a choice in this, after all. At first it was because he was too afraid of death, too afraid of the pain They inflicted when he didn't do things Their way. Then when he finally worked up the courage to remove himself from the picture - after all, there was no one here who could do what he did for Them, no-one with his knowledge and abilities - he found out they simply wouldn't let him.

The first night when he climbed into the bathtub with a bottle of wine and a razor, he woke up to find himself strapped to the wheel in the middle of the consensus - naked still, but that shame didn't register anymore to him - the cuts on his wrists healed to thin white scars. They beat him, told him not to try it again, though it didn't stop him. The end result was the same every time no matter what the method. He tried to throw himself off a building, but They caught him inches above the pavement, gasping and sweating, adrenaline pumping through his veins in an anti-climactic anticipation of pain. He hung himself from the light fixture in his apartment, tried to drown himself in the hopes that the water would keep Them away, even put a gun to his head. It all ended with him waking up on that damn wheel again, and more torture. He wasn't sure if they could actually bring him back to life or if they simply watched him closely enough to interfere before the damage was permanent, but it didn't really matter. He was still alive.

The gun ended up being the last straw for them. When he woke up, groggy, head pounding, he felt the same wash of disappointment - how did it not work? and resigned himself to another punishment. More scars, more pain. But there was a woman in front of him, struggling, crying, held firmly in place by two of them - Mr. Hand's posse, as he'd come to think of them. And before he could do or say anything, Mr. Hand unsheathed his blade, strode over to her and calmly slit her throat.

He never forgot the gurgling, the horror in her eyes, or the way the blood came in spurts from the pumping of her heart. He begged them to stop, to fix her, begged for forgiveness, but she was dead within moments, and the only sounds in the room were his soft, broken sobs.

"We will do this again if you continue to act the way you have been," Hand said simply, emotionless, and all he could do was nod helplessly.

"I understand," he said softly, and resigned himself to years of darkness and pain.

~~~~~


	2. Colourless

Colourless

There are layers and layers to the memories that Schreber has given John Murdoch - an entire lifetime of knowledge in a single syringe, just as the doctor had said. The top layers are the most important ones, of course. How to fight, how to work and reconfigure the machine, how to defeat the Strangers. Then how to create, which is what he does next - water and rock and sand, trees and little white houses. How to set the city on its gradual rotation toward the sun, to finally give them daylight.

Next John remembers Emma, with her long dark hair and full pouty lips, her pretty green eyes. Bright, colourful memories, full of life. And somehow, like it's been planned that way, he finds her standing on the end of the dock in the sunshine at Shell Beach, dress and hair swirling around her, teased by the wind. She isn't Emma any longer, of course, but perhaps that is a good thing. Anna smiles far more than Emma did, and seems to take a liking to him immediately. He takes her to lunch, and they spend the afternoon walking in Shell Beach, exploring the town, walking on the sand. He walks her home near evening, then starts up the road to the lighthouse, to where he knows his home is, smiling a little to himself.

As he walks, he starts thinking back, recalling deeper layers of memories, beyond his lessons, beyond Emma. Sitting side by side on the bank of the river with Schreber at night, listening to the doctor talk, his voice low and even without the troubled gasps of air that John had heard from him in real life. Speaking of his life with the Strangers, years of doing their experiments, their bidding. How he'd been watching John for a very long time as he slowly began to recognize the signs of his abilities, of his awakening, far before the Strangers ever did. Schreber apologizing for the night in the hotel room, how his imprint then should have contained all these memories - the lessons, the awakening - but that he hadn't been able to imprint him successfully.

"These are my memoirs," Schreber tells him in his memories, with a little sad smile. "I'll never be able to write them. But I'm telling them to you, because I want you to have this knowledge. To know what you saved the city from. To know what you've freed me from."

In the evening sun, John gives his head a little shake, trying to process the words in his memories, searching for more. He realizes that he's reached the house with the mailbox labeled "Murdoch", so familiar to him even though he's never been there, and climbs the porch steps. Then, as he reaches for the doorknob, he remembers again.

Schreber, standing with him at the door, still with that little sad smile. And even though Shell Beach is bright and vibrant compared to his life in the city, for some reason this memory is almost entirely colourless.

"John. I must apologize for my departure, but you don't need me anymore. I've given you all the tools you need to make the city your own, and to take care of the people here. I serve no purpose here - as part of the cause of all of this, I hope you can appreciate my need to remove myself from the situation. I'm just here to tell you thank you, for saving me from them. And to bid you farewell. Perhaps, if you have the time, would you go to my office and look after my rats?"

John realizes that he's been clenching the door handle to his house so hard that his hand hurts from the ridges in the metalknob digging into his skin. He looks back toward the city in a panic, mind going over the memory once more, and suddenly all the layers of memories about Emma fall away and seem flippant, trivial. Farewell?

Letting go of the knob, he quickly starts back into the city, hoping that his fears do not prove founded.

~~~~


	3. Red

Red

Daniel's office is unlocked and empty when John arrives, which does nothing to soothe the worry that he'd felt after recalling the memory of Daniel saying goodbye. He couldn't mean... he wouldn't. Would he?

There is a white envelope sitting in the middle of an empty, ornate wood desk, with his name written simply in tidy copperplate. He tears it open and glances over the content, catching only a few words. 'My apologies ... should have a very long time ago.... they would never let me, and would kill innocents when I tried, but now it will have no consequence...' He doesn't need to read more, because he knows what this is, what it means, and his fear clamps into an icy shock in his stomach.

Panicked, he closes his eyes and sends his awareness out into the city, like he'd done so easily when he'd created Shell Beach. Sensing matter, where and what and how much. But this time he's searching, trying to find the somehow familiar golden flicker of life that means Daniel. There is something, the tiniest pinprick of light in the corner of the city, and he is out the window in an instant, letting his mind propel him, grateful more than ever that it is dusk, but not caring if anyone sees at this point. He realizes, as he arrives on the roof of the building, that this is the hotel that he'd woken up in that first night, and he knows immediately to go to room 614.

At first John thinks that he's too late, simply because there's so much blood. The water that covers most of Schreber's body is crimson, and his right arm has fallen over the side of the tub, ribbons of scarlet winding from the neat vertical slice that runs almost the length of his forearm, down his fingers and into a brilliant pool on the muddy green tiles. Where the water stops on Schreber's chest, there is a myriad of angry scratches - no, cuts - that he thinks at first are self inflicted, and then realizes to be scars, and it begins to sink in what life had been for this man, what had brought them to this moment. He'd thought that people were supposed to look peaceful in death, but instead, Schreber just looks very sad. Alone.

"God, Daniel...." The name leaves his lips, helplessly, though he's never used it in reality before now, and he rakes his fingers through his hair, staring in horror at what was in front of him, not accepting it. Then his mind registers the very slight movement of the chest that means breathing, the very weak throb of a pulse under his skin.

He's never thought about the possibility of tuning flesh before, tuning people - it just wasn't part of his lessons. But it's the only thing that comes to mind, as he rushes to the side of the tub, soles of his shoes half slipping on the slick tiles. He wraps his hands around Daniel's right wrist and concentrates, finding all the places where things just aren't right, where things don't meet up, and willing them back to their natural state. There's blood on his hands, on his shirt cuffs, but he doesn't care, reaching in the bathwater for his other arm and doing the same.

"Daniel..." he murmurs again softly, and reaches into the bathwater to pull the doctor into his arms, cradled, pull him from this nightmare. It would be easier to lift him with tuning than human strength, but he isn't thinking about that, just praying that he's not too late after all. His form is much lighter than John had expected, but still warm, which cheers him enough to keep him going.

He doesn't think about Tuning again until he has Schreber laid out on the hotel bed. His skin is so pale that it's almost colourless, his lips faintly tinged with blue, and John struggles to understand what it means. Cold? No, not cold. No oxygen. But he is still breathing, shallowly. He remembers how haggard and troubled the doctor's breathing always was, and places a hand gently on that scarred chest. This he can tune as well, the burned and damaged tissue made whole. It's the blood that he keeps coming back to, however, crimson spilled on white porcelain, on the green tile. So he reaches out with his mind again, sensing, learning, trying to understand matter and the building blocks of life, to follow the path of the blood through his veins, his weak pulse, muscle and sinew and bone, until he can slowly, very carefully begin to duplicate the plasma and red cells, rich with oxygen, to replace some of what has been spilled in the bathroom.

The task is detailed and exact, and the concentration required begins to make his head ache, a dull throb of pain right behind his eyes. But finally, he feels the pulse strengthen, and Schreber's breath comes slow and deep, the colour slowly returning to pale cheeks.

Wearily, he wraps his arms and one leg around the bare form beside him to keep him warm, tugs the lumpy hotel comforter over them with a thought, and falls asleep.

~~~~~


	4. Where

Where

Daniel wakes to warmth, a solid, safe kind of warmth that strongly contradicts what he last remembers - cooling bathwater and the pain of a scalpel, ache and dizziness as he watched himself bleed. Briefly he wonders if he's been wrong about the afterlife all along, but decides that if he is in hell, he should be in decidedly more agony; if heaven, his back wouldn't still be aching like it always had.

He is still alive.

The knowledge hits him with a wash of pain. He was no stranger to this - the attempt, or to the lack of success, a deed tried many times in the early days of his servitude, before They'd made the consequences of his attempts very clear. But it doesn't explain why he is still alive now....

He opens his eyes, blinking in the hint of dawn that shines through the window, and his mind quickly processes the fact that he is still naked, and that John Murdoch is somehow sleeping next to him, arms and one thigh wrapped around him possessively, a closeness that Daniel knows will quickly become very embarrassing for him if he can't immediately go find his clothes. He considers his options for a few moments, then slowly, carefully tries to extract himself from the other man's embrace.

John gives a sleepy murmur, and tightens his arms around him. As he does so, Daniel suddenly realizes that he can breathe - truly breathe, full and deep, for the first time in as long as he can remember. The discovery floors him, and he stares at John incredulously as the other man rouses, dark curls tousled, and looks up at him with a yawn.

"Mm, sorry... didn't mean to fall asleep on you. You feeling ok?"

Daniel's lips part, and even when he manages to find words, they still aren't all that coherent. "You - my lungs.... you healed them?"

"Among other things," John says softly, watching him worriedly, and the doctor drops his eyes in shame, silent for a few moments before speaking again, voice low.

"How did you find me?"

"Your memories." He hears John give a little sigh. "My memories, that you gave me. You told me goodbye. And that... you didn't belong here."

He echoes the sigh, troubled. "I don't, John," he says softly. "I have never been imprinted as the others have been. The memories I have been left with are insufficient to allow me to be a normal, functioning member of society. All I remember is Them."

John frowns. "Look, whatever that means, I don't care. This isn't a psychology lesson, and you belong here as much as anyone else, or more. Daniel... I don't want you to go...."

Daniel gives his head a little shake, looking up at him sadly. "I do not have a place in this city, John. Truly."

He watches dark brows furrow above clear green eyes, sorrowful. "Of course you do."

"A psychologist who cannot even remember his trade? Where would I even begin to fit?" He laughs softly, bitterly, but John shakes his head.

Gentle fingers move to touch the side of his face, stroking slowly over the lines of his scars. Then slowly, but very deliberately, John Murdoch leans in to cover his mouth with his, in a warm, close mouthed caress. "You are my friend," he says softly, breath a whisper against his skin, like a second kiss, though Daniel's mind is still reeling from the first.

"Friend?" he gasps softly, and John smiles, and traces the edges of Daniel's lips slowly with the pad of his thumb.

"Of course," the dark haired man replies. "What else did you think the memories you gave me would make us?"

Daniel felt his cheeks heat up, and looked away, ashamed. "It's not real, John. Like everything else in the city, it is a farce. Synthesized emotions. No more."

John looks a little thoughtful, then shakes his head again slowly. "I don't think so," he muses, gaze unfocused somewhere on the pillow beside Daniel's head as he speaks. "It's not the same, it feels... different, then how I feel about Emma. I remembered, and felt this way because of what I remembered. What you told me. The things that made me begin to know you. The things that let you know me, know about this city and who I am when no one else could ever understand." His eyes move back to Daniel's, searching them. "Isn't that what friendship is? Knowing each other, trusting each other?"

When Daniel doesn't reply, John's eyes lower again, voice very low and soft. "When I... when I remembered your farewell.... it hurt so badly, it frightened me so much, and I didn't even really know why.... But I've realized that I - I don't know how to do this whole Tuning thing, this taking care of the city thing. I don't want to. Not without you by my side."

"You kissed me," Daniel says softly, after a long silence of taking this all in, as it's the only reply he can manage in the face of all these words and revelations.

John smiles and looks sheepish. "Yeah... sorry. It just occurred to me... that I'd wanted to do so for a very long time, for as long as I can remember."

"But I didn't..." he stops in confusion, looking up at John as green eyes flick back to his. "John, I didn't create that. There was... nothing sexual or romantic in your implant - absolutely nothing, regardless of how I felt, I - it would be very unprofessional, very inappropriate of me..." he stops, realizing what he's said, realizing that he's flustered and near stammering, that he's blushing, and that John's smile is slowly widening as he speaks.

"Then this must be real," the dark haired man murmurs, and leaning in, kisses him again.

The realization is stunningly bright to Daniel, and beautiful, and his lips part under John's without hesitation. Perhaps he does have a place in the new city after all.

~~~~~


End file.
